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Oil Under the Ice

USGS Looking for Fossil Fuels in the Arctic

Everybody talks about the vast reserves of oil and gas hiding under the Arctic Ocean. But nobody really knows how much fuel there might be. The US Geological Survey, though, is spending this year and next coming up with an educated guess.

The Russian flag planted on the floor of the Arctic Ocean in early August may have gotten all the headlines. But while countries surrounding the Arctic get geared up for what promises to be a drawn-out diplomatic tiff over who owns what beneath the polar ice cap, the US Geological Survey is busy trying to figure out whether that territory is even worth owning.

For the next several months -- until the presentation of its final report in the summer of 2008 -- the USGS will be conducting an assessment of just how much oil and gas might be hiding under the ice. By analyzing rock types and formations and by looking at geologic history, the team hopes to provide accurate guesses as to where deposits are to be found and whether they contain natural gas, crude oil -- or nothing.

"This is the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of the undiscovered petroleum resources in the Circum-Arctic in the public domain," USGS Director Mark Myers said in a press release at the very end of August. "Knowing the potential resources of the Arctic … is critical to our understanding of future energy supplies to the United States and the world."

Last week, the project -- called the Circum-Arctic Oil and Gas Resource Appraisal -- released its first results, for an area of some 500,000 square kilometers off the east coast of Greenland. According to the USGS's best guess, the so-called East Greenland Rift Basins could hold some 31.4 billion barrels of oil or natural gas. If proven, the area would rank northeastern Greenland 19th on the list of proven oil and gas reserves.

When and whether those "resources" will ever be proven, however, remains unclear. The estimate took rock formations into account and looked at eastern Greenland's similarity to the geological make-up of oil- and gas-rich areas of Norway. Furthermore, as the report points out, even if the fossil riches were proven, there is at present no profitable way to extract reserves buried under a thick armor of floating ice.

Still, that isn't stopping Canada, Denmark, Russia and the United States from stepping up efforts to formalize Arctic claims. After all, should the ice eventually disappear as a result of climate change, the Arctic promises to become the target of a geo-political gold rush. By next summer, the USGS study may provide the competitors with a good idea of just what they are rushing for.

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